give up the ground
by EleanorRigbee
Summary: Maybe he’s supposed to tell her he’s not so sure they’re just playing at pretending anymore...Post-series, Alec and Max


**Disclaimer: Don't own Dark Angel. **

**A/N:** Anyone ever noticed how Alec and Max always jump from, "_I couldn't possibly like Alec/Max"_ to _"OMG, I __**love**__ Alec/Max." _in the course of one major event? Not that it's a bad thing, but I've been binging on DA fic (by the by, putting off my reading for fanfiction in college, _feels exactly like_ putting off my reading for fanfiction in high school) and noticed a trend in MA stories. That said, this was actually started a few years ago as a snap shot of a much longer fic that just never was. In regards to this as a one shot, I just really like the idea of Max allowing herself little moments of openness with Alec after the Ben scene in **Hello Goodbye**. **Alec POV, Post-Series, hints of possible Alec/Max**. Read, enjoy, let me know what you think.

-

Alec doesn't say a word when he wakes up to the feel of her lying down besides him. He doesn't say a word when she keeps her back to him, knees drawn up and head bent forward, arms crossed protectively over her chest. There's no moment of confusion or wonderment on his part when Max stays perfectly still, breathing almost silently—in, out, in, out, and he can hear her heartbeat where her pulse thrums beneath her skin—lying next to him on the thin mattress that currently makes his bed within his TC apartment.

She smells like red wine and mold and dust and he doesn't have to guess where she was before she showed up here. Max offers nothing, just stays on her side and bores holes in the wall—because he knows without looking at her face that her eyes are still open, still peering into the dark that doesn't exist for them—so Alec just rolls on his side and pulls her away from the edge of the mattress. And when she says nothing at that, he closes the distance a little more and presses his forehead against the top of her head.

And without breathing a word, he waits.

The light on the walls is slowly turning from asphalt black to cement grey by the time Max finally moves. Just barely, she moves her head back, knocks them both from their silence, enough of a prompt for Alec to speak. "What happened?"

"It's over." She says, a crack-whisper that doesn't fit her at all. Like the man she refers to never fit her at all, but Alec keeps that to himself because Maxie isn't herself right now, lying in his bed and barely speaking. Because this is about Logan and she's saying it's over again, and maybe this time is really is. But Alec was there to play decoy almost a year ago, watched their fingers intertwine, and thinks that they probably aren't. It's the great back and forth, the constant pendulum of Max and Logan with Alec stuck somewhere in the middle.

"I'm going to die alone." Max says, and that's what convinces Alec that this is different. Something has been stripped raw off of their fearless leader and she's sporting a wound for all—no, _for him_—to see. And maybe that's his cue, maybe he's supposed to sweep in and tell her it'll work itself out. Or that it's for the best.

Maybe he's supposed to tell her he's not so sure they're just playing at pretending anymore.

But there has never been a handbook to the two of them, no way of making out the layout to the unknown territory just beyond this bed. And Alec wishes for moment that he could be a little like Logan, so he could know the words he's supposed to say. But what Manticore instilled in them was the appreciation for action, so Alec does what comes naturally.

He presses in closer, aligns his chest to her back, slots his knees against the back of hers. He closes his hand around her elbow, rests his arm along her side, keeps his hand light, lets her know she can move away when she wants to. Max stays. She doesn't relax completely, but something in the way she's holding herself softens a fraction, and she uncurls herself, presses back.

"We all die alone", Alec tells her, matter of fact and to the point, his words spoken clearly into her dark hair, "It's one of the few things everyone has in common."

Max doesn't say a word, but she doesn't leave either.

-

**End**


End file.
